Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Who Should Be the Fifth Starter for the Lakers? Williams? Mamukelashvili? LaRavia? Thiero?

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

Four spots in the starting lineup for the Lakers seem pretty settled. Obvously starting with Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler, and from there Quentin Grimes seems like a pretty safe bet.  But what about that fifth guy?  The hole comes at forward, but because Luka performs as a point guard offensively but absolutely doesn't on the other end, so what the Lakers really need is someone who can defend a few positions, allowing them to lighten Luka's load on that side as much as possible. Could that be Adou Thiero? Or is he too raw after playing so little as a rookie? How about Jake LaRavia? Underwhelming as an option, no question, but also perhaps the easiest answer if the goal is to have a starter-in-name-only type setup. What about Mamu? The Lakers invested a lot of money in him. And while he was a later add and is only on a minimum deal, Ziaire Williams makes a lot of sense, too.  So much depends on what JJ Redick and the coaching staff decide they want to do schematically, especially on defense.  We break down the options.   HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky    SEGMENT 1: The Lakers need a fifth starter.    SEGMENT 2:  Who makes the most sense?    SEGMENT 3: Is Ziaire Williams worth an extended look?    Photo Credit: John Jones-Imagn Images   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! IndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast.   SquareGet up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/NBA ! #squarepod   FanDuelCollege football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited, and this season, FanDuel is giving fans even more ways to get in on every matchup. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COM    FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Lakers have four spots in their starting lineup that seem to be accounted for. But what about the fifth? Plus, when your agent needs to stop talking to the media, we'll explain next. You are locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks everybody for stopping by, Locked on Lakers. Brian Komeneski, Andy Kemininski.

I want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by fans. Dwell, college football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited. And this season, Fandual is giving fans even more ways to get in on every matchup, join the action at Fandual.com. So we will get to the remarkably bad agent work from Jonathan Cominga. Jonathan Cominguez guy, Aaron Taylor, makes... Aaron Turner. It's Aaron Turner, sorry.

There may be a good agent named Aaron Taylor, and he does not want to be catching. mentioned these strays. Aaron Turner. Yes, Aaron Turner, thank you, who has seemed to have gone on a media tour to try to justify the work that he did this, this son, John, and Caminga. A second annual media tour. Because remember, he went on the hoop collective last year

during the stalemate between the Warriors and team Caminga to explain why, in fact, despite the world not understanding this, he is actually crushing it as Jonathan Kaminga's agent. It's not his fault that the rest of the world can't understand five-dimensional economic chess. No, it's because we keep measuring things by like the length of the contract and the amount that it's for and like what team is it on.

And how much money you seem to be giving up every year. So, you know, stopping so shallow. So we'll talk about that and what makes you think about the way the Lakers have handled this situation and the potential of having comminga under contract for three years. But let's start, Andy, with this idea. The Lakers have, we can agree that the Lakers have three spots that are certainly locked up for a starting lineup. I think Luca is a safe bet along with Walker Kessler and obviously Austin Reeves. From there, the consensus seems to be certainly that Quentin Grimes is in line to start.

at that other guard spot, which leaves the one forward position to fill. And there are a lot of potential candidates out there depending on how you treat that spot, you know, what you want out of it, what you want your bench to look like, what kind of player you need to fill it. You know, I know you have been an advocate for at least kicking the tires on Zaire Williams, who, by the way, was the subject of a very nice feature on Orange County Register. It is easy to forget. He's from Lancaster.

So it's easy to forget that he's kind of a local guy come home. So that's a nice story for Zaire this year. And, you know, he, you know, the name, the options that JJ has and the coaching staff have, none of them are particularly ideal, but there are choices. Yeah, there's nobody that's obvious and there's nobody that is an established starting caliber forward across their career so far, although it is worth noting for as much as Jonathan Kaminga in these conversations has often been framed as like a proven starter or the most starting caliber wing the Lakers could have gotten. He has started roughly a third of the games of his career. I mean, I'll say this much.

If Jonathan. If Jonathan Caminga has proven himself a starting caliber player, then I need to stop hearing that Quentin Grimes has not, because Quentin Grimes has started basically half the games of his career. So if Comingga's proven, then Grimes has proven. But I digress. But they have a bunch of options, none of whom are ideal. I've said before that I think whoever ends up in this fifth slot,

and I do think Grimes is going to be the fourth guy, I'd be pretty surprised. It would take, I think, him to have a really lousy training camp or somebody to unexpectedly crush it. Stop for a second and explain why, just because I think you and I have the same, we are of the same mindset here, but why you think it's pretty clear Grimes is set up to be that fourth guy. Because they need somebody who I think has a, has some established utility as a point of attack defender, which Grimes does. He's got a certain amount of.

experience in the league. He's got a pretty reasonably balanced offensive and defensive game, even if he's not crushing. He hasn't killed it on either side of the ball as far as somebody who's elite, but he's been, I think, pretty solid on both sides of the ball. They, I think, need somebody with both guard and wing skills. He's been pretty good as a catch and shoot option. he is somebody that while he is occasionally tempted to dribble too much, this is a role where you need somebody who can operate without the ball. And Quentin's shown that he can do that. And he just, for the options that are out there, to me, again,

short of a really bad training camp or someone else unexpectedly just killing it, he seems pretty obvious to me to be the guy. You know, a situation where it's like you're putting out lineups and practice when they're running through it. Just the rhythm with player X in place of Grimes just seems to be working really well. Or I guess there's a scenario in which whoever you choose to start at the four changes who you choose to start at three by like how that balances up. But the other thing I would say about Grimes that is one of the reasons he makes so much sense is just that he is a guy who fits with, you know, between Luca, Reeves and I would say Grimes, guys who guys who

can put the ball on the floor and attack the basket. I think that's, that is something the Lakers are going to try to do a lot of this year is place consistent pressure on the basket. He's a good enough three-point shooter that you certainly need to respect his offensive game there. And then he is one of these guys who can slash and get to the basket. I think that's how they're going to try to score. Yeah, again, I would be very surprised if it wasn't Grimes. He's also of the new guys other than Walker Kessler. He's the guy that got the biggest financial commitment in years. And while we've both said money should not dictate decisions like this, unless you're talking about a contract of, say, Kessler or Reeves or Luca, like that size, none of the new guys other

than Kessler make so much money that it would be insane to play them off the bench. But there's just, Grimes makes sense. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't. So for, for that fifth slot, and it's interesting, too, the idea of the position that guy would be, I really think of it as just wing forward because I think offensively their role could be different than what they're seen as defensively. And a lot of ways, that's just going to be defined by who you guard. And Luca, in particular, defensively, for the most part, there will be exceptions depending on the scouting report in the particular player.

But for the most part, you're going to be. looking for him to be guarding either big threes or fours. It's the matchup he tends to do best. Yeah, 100% agree. What we're talking about here when you figure out the four is much a function of where you want them to be able to perform defensively than it is their height, their weight, you know, if you want that person to be guarding twos because you think Quentin Grimes should be guarding threes and like, you know, that all of that, and I'm making

that up obviously, but all of that. has an influence. You don't have to start Mamu there because you want to start a person who is traditionally tall enough to play power forward. Right. So from there the candidates, I think if you were listing everybody that you could at least sort of make a case for and then we can winnow down some of this before the break and then after because I think there's a couple guys that would likely get eliminated pretty quickly. But I think as far as anybody who would fit the bill. It would be Jake LaRavia, Zaire Williams, Senator Maude McAch-Feeley, Vando, Cameron Carr, Matisse Thibel.

I would take Carr and Thibel off the board right away. In the case of Thibel, given his health concerns, I think it's too complicated to, A, attempt to play him even low-end starter minutes, but also to plan for him being in the starting lineup on a game-in, game-out basis. it wouldn't surprise me if Thibel is monitored a lot throughout the season. Right. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's a minutes limit on him. I wouldn't be surprised if he misses second ends of back-to-backs or, you know,

third game in five days, stuff like that. And it's just too impractical putting him in the starting lineup for that. And I think Cameron Carr, beyond the inexperience of being a rookie, I think you're actually going to get more utility out of him off the bench where he can get more touches and more scoring opportunities. So I think Carr and Thibble are kind of off the table. I think particularly with Carr, I 100% agree with you about Thibel, the logistics of it.

I just think it's a big ask for Carr. And it, I agree with you. It changes sort of, it's going to start playing away, I think, from some of his strengths. But it also means his introduction to the NBA is going to be in high leverage starters minutes against starting caliber players. And I just, you know, there may be, you know, we could, I can envision a scenario 40 games in where you look at it and saying, you know, what the kid's done pretty well. Let's, let's stick him in there and see what happens.

But I certainly wouldn't do it from game one, even if he crushes it in camp, crushes it in camp, let him continue to crush it in, you know, preseason early in the season, build some confidence and go from it. Yeah. I do think Carr is going to be in the rotation, though, unless he really struggles and He plays himself out of it. Yeah, I think he will start the season in the rotation. I think they need a skill set.

But anyway, from there, the candidates, I think would be either La Ravia, Williams, Mamu, or Vando. All right. Well, let's start walking through some of those. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fandul. College football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited. And this season, Fandual has given fans even more ways to get in on every matchup. back your favorite team, build a same game parlay, that team props, or make your picks on the biggest games of the weekend and throughout the season, keep an eye on the FanDuo app for even more

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there are a couple people in the, the comment section of the chat board on the live, the live show, which we're doing right now on YouTube. And thank you to everybody who's subscribes there, please make sure you're subscribing to the audio version as well, whether it's Apple iTunes, Spotify, however, you get your podcast, make sure you never miss broadcast. Have, you know, at least thrown out the name of Adu Thero, and I know you have been a proponent of trying at least to get the kid a regular spot in the rotation of possible. I know we've at least discussed the possibility of him being a person you could put in that mix. You left him off your list, though.

Was that? Oh, that was an oversight. Okay. Okay. Just to clarify that, I thought that I had mentioned Thero if I didn't. No. Okay, that was purely an accident. I'm glad to ask then. I thought maybe there was a reason. I have my reasons for why I don't think it would work, but I also think it's certainly not crazy to keep them on the list. Well, okay. I mean, we can we can start with Thera, who again, I did intend to put on this list.

I just forgot to. No, I forgot to mention. I actually have been a pretty big proponent of Thero bullish on him. If anyone paid attention to the coverage we did of Summer League, you would have heard me raving about Thero quite a bit. I think with the do, if he shows the ability to keep slowing down his game, because the slower version of Adu Thero is still more athletic, stronger and faster than a lot of guys out there anyway.

And if he shows the ability to maintain that type of disruption and physicality and that energy while playing under control and some form of offensive utility, whether that be in transition, whether it be as a cutter, whether it be as somebody maybe that gets fed with a little bit ahead of steam because he's shown his first steps on a drive, particularly when he's under control, they are fast, man. Like they are really quick. They're hard to keep up with. I could picture a scenario where Thero is playing kind of nominal starters minutes, maybe

15 to 18 minutes a night, something like that. Because again, I mentioned before, I do think this is going to be in a lot of ways, kind of forwards by committee in the rotation. but if Thiro was capable of doing that under control against elevated competition, I think he could be an interesting candidate just in. He provides a lot of what you would be looking for alongside the other four guys and a dimension that isn't there with them. It's a lot for Thero to prove in a short amount of time.

And he certainly has to make a very strong case. for himself, but that would be the case for Thero. I look at him and it's one of these things where I kind of lump him in with like Carr. Like it is easy to forget how little NBA basketball Thero is played. Like he did not play last year like for all intents and purposes. I mean, he didn't even get a lot of G League time. No. You know, as much as you would want because of the, the injuries.

And I think, you know, the Summer League performance, I was, what I loved most about it was how it, got better with every game. Way better. More or less. I mean, like, you know, but the trajectory was clearly up. You know, his first game, he was way too excited to be back on the floor.

He was going a million miles an hour. And I'll you think he slows us down. So like, I think offensively, you, if he shows in, I'm always going to be in the right spot. I'm going to make the right cut.

I'm going to do that. I'm going to make the right pass. and be enough of a threat to put the ball on the floor and whatever it might be to go score. My bigger problem, I think, is honestly on the other side of the ball. He can be very disruptive, and he's certainly capable of making the athletic play. But my concern would be particularly against sort of starting caliber offenses, that there's sort of not enough refinement, there in the little things in the in the in the more mundane aspects of of team and

positional defense that he still really needs to learn and those again become very high leverage minutes to learn in and while i think j j j and the coaching staff are going to have to have to have a tolerance for mistakes so that car and thiro can learn and develop and be good by the time the lakers really need them to be because it's important that both of those guys outkick their contracts, so to speak. I think it's a lot to ask him to do that with 15 games of NBA experience. Yeah. Again, I would be very surprised, I mean, pleasantly surprised as hell if this really ended up an option. I'm just saying that would be the case for Thero. And mostly just wouldn't make sure not mentioning him was an oversight. I thought maybe you'd

put, you've been like, you know, I just not, the explanation was going to be kind of like mine. He's loved the kid, really excited his potential in development. Not there yet. No, no, no. It was genuinely an oversight. Okay. Yeah, Mamu we've talked about before. I don't think he really fits well, particularly defensively, as a four on this team,

especially with some of the other starters out there. You would want, I think, more defensive reinforcement in a lineup that foundationally starts with Luca and Austin than Mamu. I don't, I also think they need to be able to ration out a lot of his minutes for the time being as a backup five where I actually think he's going to be better. And it will be, I think, difficult, not impossible, but difficult to get the requisite minutes you need for him as the backup five while also starting at power forward. Yeah, I guess it depends on how many minutes. It depends on how many minutes you think Kessler is going to get per night, assuming he's healthy. I think it's probably in the low 30s.

So that leaves you with, you know, 16 minutes or so, 15 minutes or so of backup center minutes that are available. But some of those minutes are going to be taken up by lineups where they don't have a traditional center on the floor. So, I mean, I suspect that he's going to mean, he's going to get most, I think, of the backup center minutes that go to a backup center. But as opposed to Kavanaugh, for example. But I also think, you know, he's going to. play with Castler on the floor. Like, you know, at least 40% of his minutes are going to be as a some form of power forward, whether that's backup or whatever.

But I just don't love the fit with the projected starters. And I don't particularly defensively, I would like, Mamu is not a great defender in either position, but I just feel like from the, with this roster, he's just, he's just better slotted as the backup five. I think he's going to have a good role. I think actually he's going to contribute a lot. I just don't love it there. He'll get his 20 to 25 minutes a night,

but it doesn't have to be a starter. Yeah, I guess, you know, coming up, we can get into, you know, the case for Jake La Ravia, which I think a lot of people think is sort of the safest, highest flourish type bet. Zaire Williams, who you mentioned,

I have been increasingly bullish on, especially after reading this profile, file of sorts from Benjamin Roy at the O.C. Register. There's also Vando, and we do need to make sure to drop at least a few more details from Aaron Turner, Jonathan Kaminga's agent, and why he made it perfectly

clear. Seriously, this was not going to work with the Lakers at all. So you get in all that coming up next. Do you agree that Loravia is, if you were to handicap this, like if our friends over at Fandul created a very super specific prop bet,

on the fifth starter for the Lakers. If you were looking to play it safest, it would be La Ravia. I think so. He's almost like if you, like, what is the most neutral thing you can plug in there? Like, it's just like it's almost, it's the equivalent of punting on the decision. Like what is the sort of just the thing that allows us to check off this box with the least amount. of potential disruption to the other things that we might be trying to think of what we're doing. And I think that's, you know, it, you don't, like, Vando requires you to reconfigure what

you're thinking about doing offensively more than Jake does. You know, Mamu requires you to rethink probably what you're doing defensively more than Jake does. And then the rest of your rotation, like, how, what are we going to do with the backup center, minute? It's like, Jake is kind of disposable in that regard. They're like, okay, if we can't neatly fit him in with other things we want to do in it, it's like there's no good way to give him the amount of minutes we want. It's going to look a little weird.

He might be sitting like for long stretches after starting, which some play. They're not going to care. It's fine. Like, you know, you can risk offending Jake Laravia and it's everything. Everything is going to be okay. So like, I think it just allows you to move through the decision tree a little bit faster. The issue, of course, is that while there was a stretch during the season where Jake was really kind of a nice story and a bit of a, you know, I don't want to say a pleasant surprise because I actually had pretty high hopes for him last year. And ultimately, for me, he actually turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

He was terrible in the latter part of the season and into the playoffs. Like, genuinely bad. Like, worked really hard. The effort never went away. I don't, you know, not to get into the stereotypes here, but like, you know, plucky guy, you know, given everything he had. But man alive, he was bad. And like, especially offensively, so gun shy about anything that he had to do on the floor that it was deeply problematic. So, I mean, I think if you want to like, if you have like kind of a sunshiny view of Jake, like you can see how this kind of work as a placeholder and get on to some other.

guys in different floor combinations. But, you know, it's not, if he's anything like you, he's got to shoot the ball better if nothing else. Yeah, that's one of the big things. Like in looking over some of the stats of new guys like Zaire Williams and Matisse Thibel, one of the crimes and one of the things that really jumps out is how much better those guys were at hitting wide open threes than Jake. Like Jake, I don't have the number in front of me, but on wide open threes, he shot somewhere

either in the high 20s or low 30s, which clearly is not going to get it done. And those are really the shots that matter a lot. And in the case of Thibble and especially Williams, we're going to talk about, those guys were shooting 40 plus percent on wide open threes. And I realized those are theoretically the easy shots, but those are also the ones you have to hit. And when those guys hit those shots, it forces the defense to either keep, you know, picking their poison and taking their chances and then getting punished for it, or they start deciding we have to at least semi-guard Zaire Williams. And then that means Luca or Austin or

Kessler, depending on where he is in proximity to the rim. They can't get that second to defender. And it just completely messes up what the other team's doing. So it's Jake, like, The defense, I think, you know, he gives you a certain amount of size versatility that the other options don't have, or at least the other established options defensively. You know, he's good with getting deflections. He's good with a lot of disruption stuff. He's a pretty good offensive rebounder. And there are certain things that he does do well. But I mentioned this a few times during the season last year.

Like, we were starting to reach a place with La Ravia's offensive struggles where you look over at JJ. and you're like, you really won't play Vando compared to this at all? Like, really? Like, because like the differences are starting to become pretty negligible in terms of what they are or not doing. Jake will, without question, put in the effort. And I think if he can just get himself, you know, his last season, you know, Sacramento Memphis combined from three was a career high,

but it was also very low volume. and Jake was the first to admit, I need to do this at a higher shot clip before anyone starts thinking of me as a shooter. And thus far, it showed. So he's got to improve that. Zaire Williams, this profile that Benjamin Royer of the OC Register did, I think it was a camp that Zaire was running.

He talked about why he joined. the Lakers and great opportunity, stuff like that. But he's saying, quote, being that big wing, versatile player that they needed, I just thought it was a great opportunity for me to be a Laker. Even if the same team was in New Orleans or Milwaukee, wherever, none taken says New Orleans and Milwaukee, just the opportunity that was here and the team that they had, I thought it was the best fit. And then being back home in L.A., that was the cherry on top, said that Polinka and J.J.

told him that, quote, their focus for him was first and foremost being a main defender, point of attack defender. This, though, really jumped out at me from Benjamin Royer's piece. Quote, the 694, who said the offseason was his biggest weight and strength-wise, is now listed at about 215 pounds and added that the Lakers believed he could add a defensive impact considering his length on the hardwood. that's like 30 pounds more than he was listed last year. Well, he was listed last year at 185.

And even if he's bigger than I'm saying, even if he's bigger than 185, which is probably some guys don't even bother updating. You know, these things don't get like they just the number stays the same. But like, you know, he the, when you did your scouting report, you know, on him, you know, the slightness of him, you know, the capacity to get bullied was, you know,

one of the things that that was was a big part of it. But what I think is interesting about Zaire, and I've been, you know, talking to people on the chat while you were going there. One of the things that I think works here is because this is where the Luca of it all, you know, being your air quotes point guard, you know, he functions that way obviously on offense, but he does not function that way on defense.

And so, you know, like you said in the first segment, you're talking about a guy who is ideally going to be guarding threes and fours depending on the player maybe if you have a shooting guard on your team that is not going to be doing much offensively defensive oriented two guard

or whatever it might be then okay maybe you try to hide you're going to be looking to hide Luca on whatever player with a little bit of bulk you think is is you know the best thing for him and so if Luca's guarding it Zaire Williams doesn't need to

necessarily be somebody who can line up against, you know, your big bruising fours across the NBA. And so if you think he's going to spend a lot of time on threes, it changes the equation a little bit. And, you know, then, you know, he's six, nine. And, you know, the reach and the ability to get in the open floor and can knock down a three. And again, another guy who, if he doesn't have the perfectly defined role, you know, he's on a one-year contract, you know, at a minimum, you know, certainly not going to be a guy who

I think makes waves in that way in ways that could hurt his own career. So I think that is a viable option for sure, especially if the fit around with those other guys looks good. It's pretty common. You'll see a lot of times, we're like, oh, okay, that's your fifth starter, but it kind of makes sense because of the specific things you need that. guy to do. Yeah, and I realize Zaire Williams is not an established starting player on a quality team. It's not somebody who's ever carried like a 30 minute a night role. I don't expect him to do that if he starts. I don't expect any of the guys that we talked about. Well, it's also they don't have that, they don't have that guy on the roster anyway. Well, they don't have the guy on the roster

anyway, but I'm just saying I, no matter who JJ names is that fifth guy, I don't expect any of them to be playing a 30 minute night role. I expected to be very by committee, but particularly if Williams can keep hitting those open shots, which he did very well the last couple seasons in Brooklyn. And, you know, he's obviously a guy that can slash and can cut and things like that. And if, you know, if his weight is now, you know, the very least north of 200, but if it really is around 215, 15, 69-190 is extraordinarily skinny. Right. And again, you are correct.

We don't know how often these get updated. He maybe was playing last year closer to 200 anyway, but he did not look 215 last year at all. He's a skinny dude. But if he managed to get up to 215, that could that could also change the math a bit in his favor. But you know, for the time being, he's the guy that I'm currently most intrigued by. But, you know, and you mentioned Vando. Like, Z, Vando's a little bigger, obviously, and he has more NBA experience in that way. But I mentioned it before.

Like, I am answering some of these questions without full knowledge and understanding of how exactly they want to defend, which is going to answer a lot of these questions too. What style certain players fit into certain styles, certain coverages, certain floor combinations. Like a guy might be able to do X, Y, and Z, but you need them do A, B, and C if players, you know, if Luca and Austin are out there, then can't do what you, you know, what you want them to do. then maybe they make more sense coming off the bench, a player that might not be as effective in certain things, but slots better next to Luca and Austin and Grimes because they fit your defensive coverage better could make sense,

even if you go, that guy's not as good as the player that's sitting on the bench. And so, you know, like you, at least on paper, based on their career path, you don't have to tilt your offense and make adjustments for Zaire Williams in a way that you have to for Vanda. people will guard Zaire, like not like they're not going to stick to him like Steph Curry,

but they're not going to purposefully ignore him in the same way that Vando gets ignored in ways that mess with your spacing. Yeah, I mean, they might dare him to hit a shot or two, but they're not going to spend an entire game daring him to hit a shot or two. But you can also put the ball on floor a little bit if you're given that much space and do something. Whereas again, Vando, it's like fine. Dribble.

Like, go ahead. Yeah. No one's in mind. So it'll be interesting to see how all that plays out. And again, I, by the way, too, I am going to be at the Lakers Youth Foundation Golf Tournament that they do every year to raise money for the foundation for 7-10 ESPN. I'm going to be filling in on the Mason, Ireland and show from 12 to 3 Pacific time on Thursday. And we may get a few Lakers, by the way, a few current Lakers to stop by during the golf tournament and talk with us. So I'm going to look to try to ask some questions of these guys in terms of what they're imagining for their role, try to get them to talk about some of the things we've been discussing on the show.

Before we go. Here's 45 seconds. You pitch us on why you should be starting power forward. I like this. Los Angeles Lakers. True to like Shark Tank, something like that. Ronnie, go. So Jonathan Kaminga's agent, as we mentioned before, has been doing this media tour.

to the best of my knowledge, it has just included Kevin O'Connor's podcast for Yahoo and the run it back on Fandual TV with Chandler Parsons and I think Michelle Beatle, Lou Williams, that show. And it's very similar to what he did last year with the Hoop

collective during the stalemate between Team Combing and the Warriors. We're basically why he's explaining, no, despite wide perception, we're doing great here. We got everyone exactly where, we want and despite, you know, the math, we really haven't been passing up a lot of money.

And like he, he went through very convoluted explanations about, you know, why if you really break down the yada, yada, yada, and the yada, and the yada, and the yada yada, yeah, we've given up this money, but not as much money as people think. And then if you go back into free agency and, and all these different things. But one of the quotes that jumped out of me, I think it was from Kevin O'Connor is talking about comminga. He said, now he's in a situation where he can be where he wants to be, go play basketball, and enjoy playing and being in the moment. It's very difficult to buy Jonathan Kaminga as a guy being in the moment when his agent spends so much time breaking down why the optionality and the ability to reenter free agency

again and again and again has been the thing that is valued most by team Kaminga. and just the idea of constantly being able to put yourself in a better position to get the contract that only you seem to think that you're worth. Like nobody else seems to think that you're worth this contract. But if you keep putting yourself back out in the open market, and in these interviews, which frankly, this is one of the things that if I'm coming, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He started talking about like specific numbers that Phoenix wanted to give him in a sign and trade with the Warriors. I think it was like 4 and 88, but they couldn't work that out. Like Sacramento was interested in. Chicago is interested.

And these are teams that have space next year. And you could have some, it's like, dude, you're already planning your exit from Minnesota before you've even played a preseason game. And you're also, though, the assumption. To your point, like he did went on this one. I forget what show was on. It's like, you know, yeah, we could have gone back to Atlanta, but like you're going to be like you know

the seventh you know the sixth or seventh whatever they loved him there and he's you know transperry who was the best player this but he's going to go be a seventh or something option and so he's going to go to Minnesota and be what there it's like also ignores it was a team option like Atlanta made the first choice not sure I understand that but like you know but it's an important detail could have could assign for less

like you know however he wants to explain that but there's just there there's this thing about like It's calling to question. Role, it's calling the question like the opportunity to shine. And it's always like you say to get the next thing. The Lakers are going to be locked into a three-year deal. And unless they were going to jump up to 20 million a year, 17, 18, 19 million years, something well above the mid-level, a full mid-level.

You're going to spend the next three years with, you know, that guy going on podcasts, talking about how his guy is underpaid. And well, he mentioned actually the Lakers and, you know, one of these shows, he talked about, you know, that Cominga was interested and so were the Lakers. But, you know, the sign and trade would have locked him into, he said the exact amount, 12 million a season. So I guess it confirms a lot of the reporting. Yeah. And, you know, you can't get player options on sign and trades. And, you know, the inferences, it's either going to be fully guaranteed or the options are at the Lakers pleasure.

and like again, it reminds me of that scene in the empire strikes back where Yoda is going off on Luke Skywalker and he says all his life has he looked away to the future, to the horizon, never his mind on where he was, what he was doing. Like that's comming up man. And again, his agent is, this isn't even us reading tea leaves. This is his agent's explanation. Think of how.

It was when Rich Paul was on shows and talking and this and that, we're going like that. And like, that's Rich Paul. Like, and he's talking about LeBron. I think it's a LeBron. This is a guy who, you know, is what I want, would I want my agent doing that? No. But is Rich Paul consistently delivered and clutch consistently delivered for their clients? Yes.

Has this guy? He is not. So it's just it is it is yeah he he Aaron I keep calling him Aaron Taylor Seriously there's an agent out there named Aaron Taylor that is like for God's sakes Brian Aaron Turner as somebody points out on the chat needs to unlearn what he has learned but you know it just it is more evidence that the Lakers just may have as much as it might have I've helped them in the short run for this year just to add talent to the roster in a position of need. It's a bleep show with that guy.

And I'm rooting for Kaminga to figure it all out. I hope he has a good season. I just, I will let another team unlearn Kaminga what he's learned. The chances of this having a happy ending where he signed some sort of four or five year, four year deal for a full midlevel or above seems slim to me. but we shall see. No show for Thursday. Just so people are aware, we're taking Wednesday off. We will be back for a show on Friday.

So please be looking out for that. Obviously, if something really important happens, we'll break our day off here and come and do something for you. But otherwise, we'll see everyone on Friday. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 39,000, darn near 40,000 subscribers to the channel. Make sure you're checking out the audio product and subscribing there as well. We'll see everyone on Friday.